When I was living in Louisville, Kentucky last year, I remember reading a letter to the editor in the local rag that I found uncommonly insightful. A New England transplant (like me!) was saying how shocked she was, upon moving to Louisville, that her neighbors would ask her flat-out about her religion, often before knowing anything else but her name. As the letter writer put it, up north, we don't do that. Here, asking someone about their religion and how often they go to church and whether they've accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior is a lot like asking them their salary: it's just personal.
So, a lot of us up here in the liberal northeast don't think of personal religion as something to talk about in public in a whole lot of detail. And, apparently, a lot of folks who vote in elections think you're kind of weird if you don't. What's a national Democrat to do? Fortunately, we have the Rev. Jim Wallis.
Jim Wallis, the author of God's Politics: How the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, is a longtime progressive activist, a self-described evangelical Christian, and the founder and editor of the left-leaning Christian magazine Sojourners. While Wallis's book is not funny, the man himself has impeccable timing, as evidenced by his appearance on the Daily Show this past January. So I like Jim Wallis.
This book had an interesting effect on me. I read it, bluntly, to get some advice on how to talk about religion and morality in a way I'm comfortable with, in a way that would also sound comfortable to people who buy lattes at their 5000-person megachurch. Fair? What's funny, though, is that I read a book by a religious liberal to be more comfortable about religion, and I wound up being more comfortable about liberalism. Let's be honest here: being a Democrat and talking about morality and religion is not hard. If something's immoral, call it that. If you found an awesome Bible quote, use it. People are already doing this: John Edwards says that "budgets are moral documents," which is not only true (it's a list of priorities, like how much money for the poor, how much for Star Wars missile defense, and so on) but taken straight out of Jim Wallis's introduction. Not bad.
Jim Wallis is not the only guy who's written a book espousing a liberal viewpoirt. But the way Wallis does it, using Scripture and the words of prophets, gives his arguments a lot more credence. I have to say I was convinced, and on several occasions. For example, before reading God's Politics I would have called terrorism America's most important issue, and poverty to be the second. Wallis seems to agree, but he frames it much better. First, he quotes Gordon Brown, Labour's second-in-command, that this is the first generation in history with the resources to end global poverty. Again, that's true, but morally that puts us in an awkward position: every other generation could say, "if only," and we just don't have the will to do it. Wallis shows how the discussion is important, too, turning to the eighth-century Jewish prophet Micah, who sees a day in which "nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they train for war, and each of them will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, with no one to make them afraid." As Jim Wallis sees it, and I agree, Micah draws a connection here. To "sit under his vine and fig tree" means not just peace but freedom, a freedom that's not possible for the 50% of the world making under two dollars a day. As an example, let's be blunt: the Palestinians live in shitholes and no one has a job. Do you really think they'd care that much about blowing up Israelis if they all had houses, jobs and cars? A real commitment to global poverty would be our best long-term solution for eradicating terrorism, and the plight of the poor is mentioned 3,000 times in the Bible to boot. (Spoiler alert: that's a lot more than they talk about gay marriage.) So now, personally, I feel the United States and the developed world should take stronger steps to eliminate global poverty. There are other issues, too, like race and the Israel/Palestine continual conflagration, on which Wallis has shifted my viewpoint a bit to the left. I'm still staying away from slavery reparations, but Wallis uses religion to create a very compelling case.
Wallis also brings a healthy understanding of what's going on these days in American politics. When talking about race, he flat-out says that Republicans win elections on fear so that they can usher in corporate governance. Of course this isn't true of all Republicans or all campaigns, but it's ain't as far off as it should be. He also accuses Republicans of engineering what amounts to a nationalist civil religion in which America itself is deified. I never would have thought to consider it that way, but it's exactly true. America is the ideal; America cannot be criticized. But Wallis goes back to the prophets to warn us against us-versus-them thought and deeds, quoting St. Augustine that "the line between good and evil runs through every human heart." So true, so important, and so often ignored.
I do disagree with Wallis on some points. First off, he takes an aggressive view on prescribing morality, which I find to infringe on personal freedom. Political dorks may recognize Wallis's apparent position as the "authoritarian" side of the Libertarians' World's Smallest Political Quiz, which is a pretty bad sign. But Wallis deserves to be taken seriously even here, and I'm sure it's true that raising children these days is often a counter-cultural activity. But I'm not sure disparaging premarital sex is going to solve any of that, and to be honest, if Wallis mentioned any actual solutions to this cultural problem, I don't remember it. (I can't necessarily solve the problem of crap coming out of Hollywood myself, by the way, but I do have one good idea. As I see it, Hollywood writers put dumb jokes into sitcoms and unreasonably hedonistic movie characters not to promote bad moral values, but because they're not very good writers. Why do they spend $100 million on special effects in these movies and pay the screenwriter $50,000? How about you spend $98 million on almost identical special effects, and then spend $2 million to get someone like Stephen King to write your movie? Wouldn't the plot be a lot better? I mean, they did this already with Spider-Man 2, yet there's not even a fad going here. What gives?) Back to Wallis, Jon Stewart said on the Daily Show last week that our so-called cultural cesspool is a natural part of any capitalistic society, and I'm not sure he's wrong. In any case, I definitely think supporting personal freedom has to be a priority of any democracy. How am I wrong here?
Still, the sections of God's Politics on social issues are generally about as liberally acceptable as a preacher of God's word can get. On abortion, he apes Hillary Clinton's positioning (I don't care who went first) that abortion is always a tragedy, and we need to expand opportunities for single women and for adoption so that we can reduce the number of abortions. I think that's an awesome example of common ground on a very contentious issue, and I applaud Wallis for bringing it up. And on gay marriage, it turns out he and I have basically the same opinion: give everyone the same damn civil unions form when they go to the town hall, and let the churches do what they want. (And if anyone says that getting a civil union license instead a marriage license from a dank government basement somehow threatens their bond, I say we kick them in the gonads. Remember, one of them will be a guy.)
So I wouldn't at all suggest that Jim Wallis is out of bounds on hot-button social issues. I disagree with him on a few of the above issues and some others unmentioned, but his presence in the national discussion is great for everybody.
As a piece of writing, God's Politics improves as it develops; the first few chapters were more repetitive than anything I can remember reading, but Wallis's closing is a humdinger. He uses personal testimony to illustrate his conclusion, that hope is a decision and each of us can improve our world now. Again, this is not a unique opinion, but Wallis's stories and the credibility he develops make it much more powerful.
So God's Politics gives me a better perspective on how personal morality can affect our politics. Look at President Bush and his relationship with Karl Rove. Will the president stick with loyalty, his most cherished personal value, or national security, the country's most important issue? It is wrong for Bush to put a personal friendship over the safety of our covert agents, their ability to gather intelligence, and the superior national security that results. So it raises the question: is Bush a good man? Will he do the right thing when it matters most, or will he fall short again and refuse to hold any of his friends accountable? These happen to be times that try men's souls, and I'm not sure our president is shining through. I always knew that didn't mean I hate America, and thanks to Jim Wallis, now I know how to back it up.
(More of the sunset at Lake Winnipesaukee.)
